Weight Check

Last night was a good night for Ben. The pediatrician following us at the IWK, Dr. Szudec, along with the pediatric dietitian have Ben on a high calorie diet. Right now he is on breast milk fortified with a concentrated formula. The proportion has stayed the same as what Dr. Hilliard put us on a few days ago in the valley. 100mL of breast milk and 25mL of formula.

This is just short of 4 ounces. He gets this "4" ounces every 4 hours. They want him to try and take as much from the bottle as possible and just supplement with the NG tube.

• To give him a much needed rest, as soon as Ben starts to become sleepy and has no interest in continuing to be awake we don't push him and the rest is delivered via gavage. Overnight they are allowing him to sleep and giving the total feed via the NG tube with the use of a pump.

It seems to be working. For the second day Ben's weight has increased. From what the nurse was saying it was by quite a bit as well. This is a huge relief since he needs to put on weight and continue to gain before his surgery can be done. I wish the nurse had told me what he weighed; she simply told me "It isn't good for you to be fixated on numbers, you will drive yourself crazy." Very nice nurse, very good to Ben and she knows her stuff....still I will go behind her back and ask his nurse tonight what he weighed.

Fingers crossed this continues and Ben's weight at least gets back to his birth weight over the next few days.